Analyst Mark Hulbert recently raised the question of what the rate of initial public offerings means for the stock market. He looked at IPOs and dividends as a broad way to evaluate investor sentiment. He used a variety of different data points to gauge if stocks were in a bubble. He also drew on (among other things) some interesting data from Jay R. Ritter, a professor at the University of Florida, who is an expert on IPOs. This led to some interesting observations. Consider these five issues, in order of persuasiveness: No. 1. Volume: In the first quarter of 2000, there were 123 IPOs. In the first quarter of this ... (full story)